128: Chapter 128: Alchemy is an art, mine is engineering.
After a week of tightening screws, Sun Siyuan and his group of old alchemists had completely changed.
At first, they all pulled long faces, feeling stifled and clumsy at their work.
But later on, they got into the swing of things, even competing with each other to see who could tighten them the fastest and most accurately.
Only then did they realize that the refined sense for heat and medicinal properties used in alchemy was actually quite similar to this.
They could find that "just right" amount of force faster than ordinary workers, and could use their divine sense to detect subtle flaws in the materials that machines couldn't even find.
They even started pondering how to do the job better.
For example, when welding two spiritual energy pipelines with different properties, they figured out that they could first use the alchemy method of "gentle nourishing," using a tiny bit of spiritual energy to neutralize the "temperaments" of the two materials.
After doing this, the energy flowed more smoothly through the welded interface, and consumption was reduced.
Sun Siyuan wrote down this discovery in a detailed note and handed it to Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan was stunned after reading it and immediately handed it to Jiang Ning.
After reading it, Jiang Ning approved it with four words: "Approved for trial."
Once this small change was implemented, the results were frighteningly good.
The total energy loss of the entire factory dropped by five percent.
This figure shocked old experts like Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo and Professor Chen.
In this industry today, increasing efficiency by even one-thousandth in any area would be considered a huge breakthrough.
These old alchemists, just by relying on a bit of "old experience," easily achieved five percent!
"I finally understand!" Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo slapped his thigh and shouted at Director Zhao Lixin, "Engineer Jiang's move is brilliant! This isn't humiliation; she's enlightening them!"
"She is telling them that their 'heritage' and their 'craft' aren't useless; they were just being used in the wrong place!"
"In a small alchemy room, that's just 'art' for slacking off.
But when placed on a modern assembly line and combined with standardized processes, the potential is immense!"
"This isn't just ideological transformation; this is finding them a new way to live!" Director Zhao Lixin also sighed with emotion.
Seeing that the "small suggestion" they made was actually used and caused such a stir, the awkwardness in the hearts of those old alchemists had long since vanished.
For the first time, they felt they weren't being forced to work, but were truly involved in something major.
Every screw they tightened and every pipe they welded was connected to this future super-factory.
That feeling was something they could never have experienced in a lifetime of closing doors and practicing alchemy.
Everyone's enthusiasm suddenly soared.
Just then, Jiang Ning announced that she would give a public lecture to the entire academy, including this group of old alchemists.
The location would be at the Shennong No. 1 factory, in the assembly workshop for the massive core reactor.
This caused the entire Kunlun Academy to erupt.
Jiang Ning hadn't shown her face since the opening ceremony and was like a legend; everyone said she was formidable, but no one had ever heard her lecture.
This class immediately became the top priority in everyone's eyes.
On the day of the lecture, the large workshop was packed.
Three thousand students, dozens of alchemy masters, and academy leaders like Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo and Professor Chen were all crammed into the audience, sitting like elementary school students.
Jiang Ning stood in front of a mountain-like spherical reactor that hadn't been fully assembled yet.
She didn't have a lecture script or any charts.
She simply stretched out her hand and gently swiped in mid-air.
A three-dimensional diagram of the interior of the reactor, made of light and shadow and complex enough to make one dizzy, hung before everyone.
"Today I won't be talking about theory, only how to use it."
Jiang Ning's voice echoed throughout the workshop through the amplification array.
"This is the heart of Shennong No. 1, the 'Centrifugal High-Temperature Spiritual Energy Reactor'."
"The principles are all in the books.
Simply put, it's creating a controllable little 'sun,' using extremely high temperature and pressure to break down matter, extract the energy within, and then reassemble it."
The students in the audience nodded repeatedly; they had seen these in books.
But that group of old alchemists listened as if it were gibberish.
What did "creating a sun" mean? What did "breaking down matter" mean?
This was completely different from the alchemy they imagined.
"I know that many of you, especially the older generation of alchemists, will think this method is too crude and lacks 'spirituality'." Jiang Ning's gaze swept over Sun Siyuan and the others.
"You think alchemy is 'gentle nourishing' and 'harmonizing,' that you must follow the medicinal properties."
"My method is the opposite."
"That's right," Jiang Ning admitted directly.
"The path I walk is exactly the 'opposite' one."
"Because following the natural way is too slow."
She extended her finger and tapped the three-dimensional diagram in the air.
On the diagram, an ordinary herb was magnified significantly.
"When you practice alchemy, you have to put in great effort to simmer it slowly, waiting for the medicinal properties within the herb to emerge on their own."
"I cannot wait."
"I will use temperatures of over ten thousand degrees to break it down into the most basic spiritual energy particles in one ten-thousandth of a second!"
"Then, I will use centrifugal force and magnetic fields to reclassify, filter, and purify these particles according to my requirements!"
"This process is just like sifting sand.
What I don't want, I throw away as trash.
I only want the most essential part."
"Therefore, my 'Spiritual Energy Replenishment Fluid' can reach a purity of 99.99 percent."
"Because on my production line, the word 'impurity' simply doesn't exist."
These few words from Jiang Ning left all the old alchemists stunned.
Directly breaking medicinal materials down into the most basic particles?
This... this was such an overbearing and crazy idea!
This was no longer alchemy; this was... manufacturing!
"As for the 'heat' and 'harmonizing' that you value most," Jiang Ning swiped the screen again.
Countless complex curves and formulas popped up on the screen.
"Here, all 'heat' can be calculated as three numbers: temperature, pressure, and time."
"All 'harmonizing' can be achieved by adjusting the ratio of catalysts and the speed of spiritual energy injection."
"That 'optimal' point that you only reach after decades of experience and intuition..."
"My central processor can calculate it from tens of billions of possibilities in less than 0.01 seconds."
"Then, it will turn this 'optimal solution' into commands and send them to every part on the production line, making them execute it with zero margin of error."
Jiang Ning looked at the stunned faces in the audience and summarized.
"Your alchemy is a craft, an art."
"My alchemy is a science, a form of... engineering."
"What you pursue is personal technique and intuition."
"What I pursue is absolute efficiency, absolute precision, and infinitely replicable... productivity."
"This is our biggest difference."
"And it is what I call... dimensional reduction strike."